Commando Frame Test Film
- Thread starter L.A.B.
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Hortons Norton
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Very nice video, Thanks. :shock:
cliffa
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Oh, now that's a real piece of Norton history. Where on earth do you find it?
Which one is Frank Damp I wonder? :wink:
They ride those dummy sleepers pretty well I think. It's a real testament to the Roadholders that the riders can even hold onto the bars.
Looks like NV were cheating a bit though as the red bike doing the jumps is a Ranger isn't it?
Thanks for posting it L.A.B.
Cheers,
cliffa.
Which one is Frank Damp I wonder? :wink:
They ride those dummy sleepers pretty well I think. It's a real testament to the Roadholders that the riders can even hold onto the bars.
Looks like NV were cheating a bit though as the red bike doing the jumps is a Ranger isn't it?
Thanks for posting it L.A.B.
Cheers,
cliffa.
cliffa
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I love the all Silver Commando. Do my eyes deceive me or is it fitted with a smaller front wheel & tyre? It looks very cool I think.
https://youtu.be/o624FRvsSsE?t=554
Cheers,
cliffa
https://youtu.be/o624FRvsSsE?t=554
Cheers,
cliffa
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cliffa said:
It just showed up on Youtube. Credit must go to 'jamesedwardmeader' for posting it.
cliffa said:
Frank would have left by then, although it says 1969 at the beginning it must be 1968.
cliffa said:
Perhaps they were checking those too but as you noticed, there's also what appears to be a silver pre-production 'S' Type doing the jumps.
Edit: The "Ranger" RJD 45E was registered in May '67 according to the DVLA database (last taxed in '81), so must have been an early P11A, not a Ranger. Who knows what it was doing there but perhaps it was a factory hack or development bike?
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Mr. Rick said:
Those test riders were either nuts or had huge cojones! Perhaps, both were required. Norton owners everywhere owe them a debt.
Slick
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Interesting bit of history there and it hints of propaganda. It starts with a statement that the boys across the pond used them for road and "rough desert" and that five died.Then you are treated to about 13-1/2 minutes of Commandos doing flying leaps and bumpy road tests. Somewhere, maybe at the end, I would have expected to see a few broken frames but we see nothing - nada.
Granted, I have no idea who compiled the video and for what purpose.
Topic is a bit near and dear to me in that I experienced it first hand. As it goes, a riding partner and good friend back in the day had a Fastback that was quite the rocket ship and he and I on my 850Commando had some spirited rides until one day he pulled it into his garage complaining about vagueness in the feel. We found that one down tube snapped off right at the junction. So there it sat on the center stand with me on it casually letting the handle bars go lock to lock, nothing violent mind you, when the other down tube drops. For some reason he was pissed at me but that did not last long.
Granted, I have no idea who compiled the video and for what purpose.
Topic is a bit near and dear to me in that I experienced it first hand. As it goes, a riding partner and good friend back in the day had a Fastback that was quite the rocket ship and he and I on my 850Commando had some spirited rides until one day he pulled it into his garage complaining about vagueness in the feel. We found that one down tube snapped off right at the junction. So there it sat on the center stand with me on it casually letting the handle bars go lock to lock, nothing violent mind you, when the other down tube drops. For some reason he was pissed at me but that did not last long.
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MY 1968 Commando had the Widow maker frame with some kind of a repair done on the backbone tube. I welded on a steel tube just to be sure. Then I tested it out with cutoffs and flip-flops :wink:
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Unless my eyes are deceived by some spell (!) isn't the frame (frames?) carrying a mini tank already braced? If so, maybe the film's intended more to prove that the new frame's safe than anything else?
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NortonMKIIA850 said:
As I think it can be seen in the picture, the front half of the fuel tank has been completely removed, presumably so the rider could keep an eye on what was happening to the frame.
Various things were tried, such as larger diameter and thicker section top tubes before they settled on Ken Sprayson's brace tube modification, but even then, Norton apparently experimented with tapered pressings welded together to form the top tube and Reynolds were asked to produce some Commando frames to that design, however, according to Ken Sprayson in his book, they were never made and the idea was eventually forgotten.
The "tapered pressings" weren't used on the Commando. They were developed later for the AJS Stormer after a number of frame failures on the works M-X bikes, including one on which Malcolm Davis won a major race. When we took the gas tank off the frame separated - the tank was keeping it together!
The "top tube" was actually made up of two semicircular "half-tubes" with a long tapered flat piece brazed between them on each side to make a frame "backbone" that tapered from an obround shape of about 90% of the headstock depth at the forward end, to a circular cross-section at the connection to the rear loop. We didn't use welding on the Stormer because of metallurgy issues.
The Commando was in full production at Plumstead, having moved there in early 1968. The folks there went for the re-inforcing second tube below the "real" top tube since it would be an easy retrofit. The Stormer was still in its pre-production phase when we developed the concept.
The "top tube" was actually made up of two semicircular "half-tubes" with a long tapered flat piece brazed between them on each side to make a frame "backbone" that tapered from an obround shape of about 90% of the headstock depth at the forward end, to a circular cross-section at the connection to the rear loop. We didn't use welding on the Stormer because of metallurgy issues.
The Commando was in full production at Plumstead, having moved there in early 1968. The folks there went for the re-inforcing second tube below the "real" top tube since it would be an easy retrofit. The Stormer was still in its pre-production phase when we developed the concept.
I pulled the plug on N-V just after Easter 1968, having accepted a job offer from Boeing earlier in the year. We cleaned out our house in the village of Coven, a bit north of Wolverhampton. The Boeing-contracted shippers came and took all our stuff and packed it for shipment to Seattle. DW and I and our two kids went to stay with folks in our old home town (Leyland, Lancashire) until fly-away date arrived (July 2nd). We flew non-stop from Heathrow to Seattle on Pan Am and stayed with friends who had emigrated from the UK a couple of years earlier.
We're still in Washington State, though we did spend 3 years in Tidewater Virginia (Hampton/Newport News, 1971-73) after being laid off. I retired from Boeing early, fed up of all the travel, and we moved to a small seaside town (Anacortes) about 60 miles south of the US/Canada border on the WA north coast. Wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
We're still in Washington State, though we did spend 3 years in Tidewater Virginia (Hampton/Newport News, 1971-73) after being laid off. I retired from Boeing early, fed up of all the travel, and we moved to a small seaside town (Anacortes) about 60 miles south of the US/Canada border on the WA north coast. Wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
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